You’ve probably heard of Fahrenheit 451, and you may have already read it. If not, then go read it. The first time I read it was around two years ago, and I loved it, but I wasn’t really catching some of the things Ray Bradbury was talking about, I was just enjoying the story. That’s how it goes for me. I try not to analyze books too much on the first reading since I just want to enjoy them, but on my second reading I picked up so much I hadn’t known, or may have forgotten the first time around. And that’s what makes the second reading of some books for me arguably more enjoyable than the first. And reading Fahrenheit 451 again has set in stone how perfect it is.

In Flames

Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future world where books are illegal. If caught with books, an alarm is raised and firemen burn your house down. Since all houses are now fireproof, firemen don’t stop fires, but start them. Guy Montag, our hero, is a fireman, and after a watching a harrowing display of a woman burning with her books, he questions what the hell the world has come to, just like any hero of a dystopian story. Even before that he meets a girl called Clarisse who enlightens him on the simple pleasures of walking, staring and being. People in this world are made to enjoy themselves whenever possible. Why take a stroll on the roadside when you can drive cars a hundred miles an hour down highways and stare at the stretched out billboards? Why read when you can watch endless TV shows in your parlour walls? Montag’s wife, Millie, is an entertainment junkie. Her ‘family’ exist in the parlour walls, and she doesn’t much care for the ‘important’ things in life. She doesn’t care about Montag’s wages when she asks him to spend about 2K on a fourth parlour wall. When Montag objects, she replies with: ‘it’s only two thousand.’ There is a giant chasm between Montag and his wife, and he begins to realize that they don’t really know each other.

Ray Bradbury, to me, speaks out about all our distractions that beg for our attention. Writing these days can be tricky when YouTube stands idle with more entertainment than you can possibly imagine, and everybody gets distracted by anything. TV gluttons can find pretty much anything these days, and there is more than enough of any kind of entertainment to keep you occupied. And when you’re done, you move on to the next big thing, and again, and again. Knowledge is golden, that’s another thing I get from the book. With books no longer in print, and runaway copies are promptly found and burnt, soon the society in Fahrenheit 451 will never know anything else more than what their favourite TV shows are. Nobody will talk to one another, and nobody will care much about anything else. Millie’s friends, Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowles are good examples of this. Mrs Phelps hates children and questions why anyone would have them, while Mrs Bowles says she gave birth via caesarian section twice and sees her children about three times a month. There is no intimacy between her and her kids. They exist purely because she let them, other than that, they are nothing more than faceless children belonging to somebody else. Therefore, making them somebody else’s problem.

Different Worlds

Fahrenheit 451 often sits in the same family with two other well-known, iconic dystopian books: Brave New World and Nineteen-Eighty Four. Having read them all, I’d say either Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World is my favourite. I need to read Brave New World again to make a definite choice, but they are both phenomenal reads with amazing stories. Nineteen-Eighty Four is a great book, but it never really grabbed me. Not sure why, it just didn’t. I’ve read it twice and the first time had me speechless since I’d never read anything like it, and then I read the other two and preferred those much more. I love dystopian stories, but I don’t know when another as good as Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World is going to come along. I loved the first Hunger Games book, but the other two didn’t gel with me. The first, though, is excellent.

Futures as dark as these seem a long way off, and maybe they won’t ever exist. But, knowledge is power, and dangerous when placed in the wrong hands. Knowledge, or morbid curiosity, gave birth to the atom bomb, and all sorts of dastardly devices we would be better off without. There is a great metaphor at the end of the story that mirrors phoenixes and humanity. The phoenix dies and rises again from its ashes, and humanity is apt to repeat its mistakes time and time again. And when the city is blown up by nuclear weapons, it all made sense. We do make the same mistakes again, and we kill each other over knowledge that may or may not be real such as biblical scripture. And are we no better than Ray Bradbury’s firemen – burning knowledge that we don’t think somebody should be reading or sharing?

If you’re interested in gaming, then you’re probably aware that virtual reality may be the big new thing on the horizon. With crowdfunded projects such as Oculus Rift making waves and breaking into production, it’s no surprise then that the possibility that virtual reality may evolve gaming into a more personal, immersive and real thing. But, that sort of technology won’t come cheap, and what about the affects it may have on the players? If you get motion sickness easily, then wearing the goggles may not work. And what happens to the body when exploring virtual reality? Interesting questions. And something I want to explore in future writing.

Tapping In

I love games, and games are plenty immersive as they are with hits like Skyrim, Fallout and Grand Theft Auto, but you’re only moving things with the gamepad. In fact, I think the closest thing we have to virtual reality is either The Sims, or playing Forza Motorsport with a steering wheel. And immersion can break instantly when nature calls and you have to abandon the game for a minute. Virtual reality has a chance (if done well) to really guide players into a world and convince them this is real life. All Skyrim needs is a pair of goggles and I’m travelling the plains of Whiterun searching for dragons to slay. Skyrim has continued to prove that games can be places where you can live for hours, where the real world ceases to exist and all that matters is learning the basic skills of alchemy. Small achievements in Skyrim outweigh small achievements in real life some of the time, and when you’re more excited to get back into the make-belief than do something in reality says a lot about the power of video games. But, that can come with a price.

Virtual reality has been around for years, but now it seems that gaming companies are really taking interest and planning for their future on consoles and PCs. And only recently have I taken an interest myself. With the right game, paying a load of cash for a bulky (hopefully not) headset could completely change the experience. But that does depend on the game. Recently I’ve been wondering if I would trade my own life for a life in virtual reality. Let’s use Skyrim for example. In that game you are a hero, and you solve pretty much everything there is to solve. It’s an adventure you carve on your own in a world reality can’t make up for you. Video games are often the outlets for the social inept, and if they had the choice to trade their lives for a game one, would they take it? And if they did, what happens to the body in the real world? This is something Adam Sternbergh questions in his awesome novel, Shovel Ready. In the book, characters hire nurses to look after their bodies while they explore virtual reality because it offers a better life than the ruin they live in. I still don’t know if I’d choose it. I guess it depends on what happens to my body in reality.

Become One

These are things I want to explore in future stories, maybe a novel. What would happen if a protagonist had to explore a virtual reality for some reason? What would happen? And that’s taking into account all the things the body goes through in reality, and how an artificial world can affect a human who hasn’t known one this intense before. It may be too much for me to handle, but it’s something worth attempting at some point. Immersion is what really makes some games stand out more than others. Games like Bioshock that rely wholly on setting to pull you in, and Alien Isolation that relies, not only on location, but the Alien itself. Imagine the Xenomorph skulking the corridors searching for you in virtual reality? That would be awesome. But, this won’t come cheap, and now there are alternate options in development like Project Morpheus and Valve’s own spin on it, these headsets could be the new consoles in a sense. What makes you purchase an Xbox One over a PS4? The games, right? Or the tech? Maybe some headsets can only be compatible with specific consoles and games, I don’t know. How does one decide?

Ultimately, virtual reality is going to intensify the stories told in games and really, these headsets may only work with some games. Horror in particular. Driving too. But, we’ll see. Since console gaming in general is becoming less and less interesting (at least with the current generation of games out there), virtual reality can break that dry spell and perhaps a new dawn is approaching. It’s too soon to tell, and I doubt I’d purchase a headset right away. Like the iPhone, it may not be all that great in its first birth. Wait for a few years and let’s see what it can really do. Like the Apple Watch.

Finishing a novel project is a weird experience. I remember the first time I finished a novel, a complete rip-off of Red Dead Redemption, but 70,000 words I was mighty proud of. I peeled away from my desk, (after writing 4,000 words) so, so pleased with myself that I could endure three months of agonizing over a single project. And since then I’ve kept going, and with every finished first draft, and with every revised revision, I learn something. The first draft of my current novel is done, and I learned one helluva lesson: I don’t like plotting one bit.

From A to B

I’ve said before that I prefer writing with ‘story’ rather than plot before, and I stand by that firm foundation of belief, as much as the most devout follower of a religion, but I’m not against it. Security is great, and plotting to me is a peek through the peephole and opening a door to catch the bolt. Me, I’m a story guy. Open the door, who cares who’s there, I’ll welcome any stranger to my porch. I love to see where the story wants to go, and for me books shouldn’t feel artificial, the stories inside should feel as real as the touch of another person. My current novel is all-story, the first time I’ve ever done that. My last project was a little plotted, but mostly story-based, and I’m totally convinced it works. For me, anyway. Planning and plotting are different things, though. I still write notes longhand, (laptops are crap for that) and I detail some things like settings or a particular theme, but story, characters and little things are made up through the story. I could never think of any particular ticks or niggles about characters through planning. If they want to bite their lips, they will.

Plotting can (as does excessive planning) also ruin a project for me. If I find myself more excited about planning something than actually getting down to the quick and writing the damn thing, then that’s dead and buried. But it is equally true that poor planning can end a novel as quickly as you started. Great ideas bloom into something worth reading I think, and if you’ve got a good idea, it’ll grow. I’m already making small notes about my next novel, and I suspect I may do a bit more planning than usual since it’s focusing more on the fantastical than I’ve ever done before. But, I’ve got to edit this book first. And that’s something that will teach me more lessons. I already know some chapters will either be scrapped completely or totally recut into something else. Small details have been ignored, one character has been made redundant, and there are some rush-jobs here and there could do with some extra sauce, but that’s how first drafts work. They are always awful. Sooner or later, with enough polish and careful tending, the final piece is going to sparkle with that showroom gleam.

From Y to Z

The length of my first drafts are longer too since being the ‘story’ writer these days. This project ended at 82,000 words. Mind you, the last was 100,000, a novel I haven’t revised yet for reasons involving my own confidence. But, that’s still on my to-do list. This 82,000 word story went places I never imagined, and I’m still amazed how different the finish piece turned out from the original concept. Also, working with fewer characters works for me more than a large cast. I always prefer to read stories about a close group of characters instead of a town-full, but that’s something I want to work on. Hell, if I’m going to write this fantasy story then I might have to work out that issue a little sooner than first thought. But, it’s all learning. Not one writer knows everything, not even Stephen King. If you can master an art, than where’s the fun afterwards?

As I wait for the month’s passing so I can edit my novel with fresh eyes, I’m going to focus on the short stories more. Yeah, I still write shorts when working on a novel, but now I can be extra mindful of what to write next. I really wish I started writing shorts before novels, but you can never underestimate the power a short story holds over everything else. Some of the best stories out there are shorts such as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and 1922. Both Stevie King, I might add. Anyway, I’ll continue to scour the landscape for opportunities, send them off and see what’s what, but until next time, keep writing.

April was a phenomenal reading month, mostly. I found a book that I knew I’d like but never knew how much I would come to love. And that is a wonderful thing, when you come across a book that has this serendipitous quality you can’t get anywhere else. I heard about it, but when I came to read it, it was instant love. It really was. Then I had the complete opposite book… something I absolutely loathed. April was ace, for the most part, and not just with the quality of the stories themselves. While reading I discovered new things I like about reading, and lots of short story ideas thanks to Neil Gaiman. To say it was a top month would be a fatal understatement

The Wrap Up

Let’s get the crap out of the way. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway was the first book of April, and the absolute worst so far this year. I’ve read it before, but that was two years ago during lunch breaks at Tesco. It was either read for an hour, or chat with people you don’t know. I resolved to read. Anyway, I read it again for the book club, and I was sure I’d like it more now I knew what was going to happen… and I actually hated it. First I disliked it, now I hate it. I couldn’t enjoy it for any reason. Just dull. But, then I read a book that will go down as one of those life-changing reads, a book you’ll want to recommend to anyone for all the reasons you loved it. Soulmates by Holly Bourne. Go and read it. I harped on about this in a recent post, and I just freaking love this story. Young adult fiction is my favourite, and this will hurt you and make you happy. Never since Paper Towns have I reached out to characters like this. Poppy and Noah are an incredible couple you never tire of reading about, and the entire concept of soulmates is placed under extreme scrutiny. It’s worth every goddamn word.

Soulmates is one of the few books I’ve read that gave me a reading hangover. I wasn’t ready to move on, but I did it anyway and cracked on with The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting, Holly Bourne’s second book. Although not as good as Soulmates, (what is?) but still darn brilliant. I loved how the characters were overblown and somewhat American-ized with their clichés and their problems. It straddled lines that Mean Girls went for, and pretty much every horrible secondary school person you can think of is in this book. Holly Bourne reaches out to the lonely school teens and tells them things will be OK. You don’t need to be these ever-popular-glossy-magazine personalities to be interesting or happy. You need to be the person you want to be, at least that’s what I got from it. As long as you’re happy with yourself, that’s all that matters. And happiness is king, and can’t often be found in schools. Believe me. And because of these books I’m immediately excited for her new book, Am I Normal Yet? I want it! To finish off I read Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning, a collection of fantastic short stories that I couldn’t put down. Yes, some I didn’t understand and some I will read again for different reasons, but 9/10 the stories were awesome. And I kept getting ideas of my own and jotting them down. Some of which have been written up. Love Neil Gaiman’s work. Freaking love it.

May TBR

So far I’ve read Misery this month, and right now I’m working on The Shining. I’m not certain what’s next, but I am going to tackle The Husband’s Secret for the book club. Not something I’d pick out at a store myself, so I’ll have to see if I like it. The thing is I’m aching to read more Stephen King and I have nearly an entire shelfful of King books to read. Revisiting 11.22.63 is awfully tempting, as is Joyland and Insomnia, but then again I need to finish The Walking Dead books about the Governor. TBRs aren’t what I’m good at. Often I’ll go against my promise and read something else. Truth is, I like to decide on the spot. Planning is great, but I can’t promise I’ll feel the same way when push comes to shove. It’s all ever-changing. BUT! I can promise another Stephen King book this month after The Shining. Oh, and spoiler alert, Misery was incredible.That’s all I got. In the meantime, I recommend reading Misery if you want a cracking horror novel and terrifying suspense with just a touch of blood. Just a little. One day I’m sure I’ll blog why Stephen King is my fav— yes, my FAVOURITE writer, and what King books I love the most, but right now I’ve got other ideas in the works. Also, to wrap up last week, Alien Isolation is finished and it was uh-mazing. When The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt comes out I’ll blog about that. A game that big has more than a few stories to tell. Until then, keep reading.